Koom Kankesan Writers in Residence Archives
Koom Kankesan was born in Sri Lanka. While his family lived abroad, the civil war in Sri Lanka broke out and this caused them to seek a new home. They eventually settled in Canada and have lived here since the late eighties. He has a background in English Literature and Film Studies. Koom contributed arts journalism to various publications before becoming a high school teacher in the Toronto District School Board. Since working as a teacher, he has taken semesters off now and again to work on his fiction. The Tamil Dream, his new book, is his most ambitious to date. It looks at the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka and how it affected Tamils here in Canada. Besides literature and film, Koom has deep interests in history and science, and an enduring love for comic books.
You can write to Koom throughout January at writer@open-book.ca.
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January 30, 2017Exit Interview
For my last interview, I thought I'd turn the tables and ask someone else to interview me. Since he was also in the midst of leaving a position (admittedly one of much vaster scale), I sent my books ...
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January 29, 2017Prizewinner / Prizefighter
I don't know how many people you personally know that have won more than one Governor General's Literary Award, but I know only one. His name is Lazer Lederhendler. A celebrated and much sought after ...
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January 28, 2017Tribute to Ed Yanofsky
No, no, Ed Yanofsky's not dead.He just happens to be retiring. And... retired.The retirement is recent. After promoting writers and literary events for the University of Toronto Bookstore, Ed worked for ...
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January 27, 2017Zero Sum Game
Kenneth J. Harvey's artistic resume runs the length of your arm. For someone who has achieved so much, in the realms of literature and filmmaking, you'd be surprised at how strong his feelings are about ...
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January 26, 2017Frenemy of The People
Tasha Nathan’s first book, Follow Your Heart, will be out on Valentine’s day. It looks at an interracial relationship from the point of view of a Tamil teenager. The word ‘relationship’ is scary ...
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January 25, 2017A Passage to Academia
I cannot separate Anupama Mohan from the context of school. I met her in university while she was completing her PhD. A fan of film, Shakespeare, and critical theory, she impressed our professors, took ...
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January 24, 2017Teaching Teens to Write
Nora Ohanjanians is a retired high school English teacher who taught the Grade 12 Writer's Craft course at the school where I teach. One of my favourite people, Nora is a very warm, giving person. She ...
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January 23, 2017Go Ahead Punk, Make My Art
Jaime Hernandez's characters are to Archie's Betty and Veronica what Anna Karenina is to Snow White. That is, they're both beautiful but one of them has a helluva lot more going on. More so than any of ...
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January 20, 2017Son of a Preacher Man
Paul Young is the son of a Lutheran minister. As a good minister will endeavour to bring Heaven and Earth a little closer together, through works and deeds, Paul effectively closes the distance between academic ...
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January 19, 2017'Putting Descartes Before the Horse'
You don't measure Alan Moore's writing in words; you measure it in Faradays. You measure it in Roentgens. After dropping five hundred megatons of creativity into mainstream comics ...